On Home Scoring, the Elite Kind

The official motto of the American gymternet is Illos numeros inter gentes numquam accipiet. (She'll never receive those scores internationally.)

Over the years, we've all seen any number of hilarious scores showered upon US gymnasts at domestic competitions, and this storied history of ridiculing hyper-American judging has cultivated the widespread assumption that less biased international judges would never succumb to such silliness.

At times in the past, this has been the case, but in the last few years, the international judges have seemed willing to evaluate the execution of routines with that we would normally consider an American lens. Has the "she will never receive those scores internationally" argument become a knee-jerk response to perceived overscoring without a strong correlation to fact? Will she probably receive those scores internationally as well?

Those are my questions, at least. So, as a way of reintroducing myself to the elite world, which at this point has been [scene missing] ever since the Olympics, I compared the execution scores given to the US team members in 2011 and 2012 at Classic/Championships/Trials with the scores they would later receive at Worlds/Olympics. (I went back no further than 2011 because I don't have the D/E breakdown for 2010 TF and AA and 2009 AA.) I threw out routines with falls and major mistakes, since they would skew the execution score in a misleading direction. This is about the evaluation of essentially equivalent routines, not comparing falls to hits. Certainly, there are differences in the actual quality of all routines (a wobble or two here, no wobbles there), but those issues should even out between the two sets of competitions, providing an overall reliable sense of how the judges are evaluating American performances.

Women's Team Final

This is it, our day of days. I hope the gymnasts are less nervous than I am right now, because otherwise they will all be falling all over the beam. If there was ever evidence that I could never be a high-level athlete, my mental state right now is it. I'm not even doing anything.

Gabby Douglas, Huang Qiushuang, and Ksenia Afanasyeva are all doing beam in an Olympic Team Final. I think I have reason to be disconcerted. How many times over the months and years have we said, "over my dead body" about all three of those?

My current state:

Well, here we go. All of the attention will revolve around how the US hasn't won since 1996, but the Russians have technically never won (as an independent state), so both are overdue. China is relying on Yao to do vault in Team Finals, so that tells me what I need to know about their chances, and Romania just isn't strong enough on bars or vault (aside from Izbasa) to challenge hits from the US and Russia. I say hits, but honestly I would be surprised if either the US or Russia goes 12 for 12 tonight. There will be falls, the question is when and how many.

Follow along after the jump at 11:30 ET/8:30 PT

Two Per Country

Obviously, in the wake of Jordyn Wieber missing out on the All-Around final, the subject of the two-per-country rule has come to the forefront once again. This is perhaps a positive side-effect of the result because it leads people to remember that this rule needs to be addressed.

However, I am a little resentful of the way this rule is being discussed both in gymnastics and in the wider sports media. Now, I agree with the large majority of people that a three-per-country rule makes more sense for our sport because it would provide a more engaging final competition and because the two-per-country rule doesn't do anything. (I don't buy this fairness argument, though, because sport isn't fair. That's what makes it sport. If it were fair, the US would be fielding a team of 11 here and everyone would get a participation trophy.) The true reasons this change should be made are getting lost behind emotion and a lack of understanding and explanation.

While everyone is quick to jump on the current rule and say how terrible it is because it was mean to Jordyn, during last night's NBC broadcast, for instance, not a single person stopped to explain why the rule exists in the first place. There is an actual reason there. It's not just arbitrary. The two-per-country rule is intended to encourage the international nature of the sport, cultivate the opportunities (and attention given to those opportunities) for people in countries without gymnastics history or a major program, and ultimately create a worldwide sport with true international parity. (I apologize for the use of parity. I've been watching NCAA for too long.)

I think we can all agree that those noble aims make complete sense and would nurture the health of the sport. While misguided, the FIG is at least coming from right place. However, the rule does not work because you cannot hope to build gymnastics programs by starting at the top and suddenly giving access at major competitions to people who aren't prepared for it. Artificially bringing in gymnasts who don't have the talent level to participate doesn't make the country stronger. The attention needs to be paid to the lower levels of the sport, to increasing funding and access on the junior and domestic levels (note that this is difficult, which is why the FIG chooses instead to pay lip service to the idea with a stupid rule).

Creating a more international sport has to start from the youngest gymnasts at the smallest clubs, not at the Olympics. That's why the two-per-country rule doesn't do anything. That's why we should get rid of it, and that's what we should be talking about. Right now, the argument against the rule is coming from a "the thing I wanted to happen didn't happen so now I want the rules to be changed!" place, which is petulant to say the least.

Live Women's Qualification - Subdivision 3

We are soon to get underway in the third subdivision of Women's Qualification, which features the US, Great Britain, France, and Canada. The final three subdivisions are the main event today, and I'm  excited to see what the US can put up. Does it make me a bad gymnastics fan if I'm going to follow the US team from apparatus to apparatus instead of watching the main feed? I can watch the other important routines (so, Tweddle's bars) on replay. The non-US question of this group will be whether a PPL-free Canada can beat Australia's fall-laden score.

For the United States, the most important routines will be Maroney's vault (is she really ready to do it at the 16.000 level she needs?), Wieber's bars (that routine composition is hanging by a thread), and Douglas's beam (obviously). If they get what they need out of those performances, it will be a successful day. Also, keep your eye on the ball, and the ball is Aly Raisman. She's not so far behind Wieber and Douglas in AA scoring potential. A fall from one of them could become a total thing.


What's going to happen here?

Current Standings after two subdivisions
Team:
1. Italy - 168.397
2. Australia - 166.721
3. Brazil - 161. 295

All-Around:
1. Ferrari - 57.932
2. Gomez Porras - 56.132
3. Ferlito - 55.500
4. Steingruber - 54.715
5. Little - 54.498

Competition begins at 9:45 ET/6:45 PT with commentary here.

Olympic Gymnastics for Beginners

Two weeks. We have just two weeks until the Olympics begin and I sequester myself in a live-streaming bunker heretofore unexplored by civilized man. Mmm, early-round badminton at 2:30am? I'm there! I'm already a little angry at NBC that ranking round archery on the morning of July 27th is not on their live streaming schedule on the Live Extra App. (Yeah, I'm not well.) Frankly, I will emerge from my cave on August 12th looking like the missing link. I have the Smithsonian's number in my phone already just in case they need to make some observations for posterity.

But given that we are about to enter gymnastics' quadrennial foray into public consciousness before the attention is squandered yet again, those of you with social tendencies (I'm sorry) may find yourselves in the awkward position of watching Olympic gymnastics with other people. More specifically, other people who don't know anything about gymnastics.

It's a harrowing experience, what with all the questions and lack of understanding about 180-degree splits, so after the jump I have provided a handy list of common questions with their appropriate responses to help you through the process. Feel free to refer to this list, perhaps even employing a simple point so you don't have to use words, when dealing with a beginner.

Trials Eve

Are there times when you wish you were a only a casual gymnastics fan? I do right now. Then, I would be going into Trials not knowing who the team might be and wondering what kind of exciting gymnastics I'm going to see. We spoil it for ourselves sometimes.

Examiner Blythe quotes Martha as saying what we already know. "Really, very honestly, I have one ideal team in my head. I still have the same team in my mind as I did two months ago." So do we, Martha. So do we.

I don't follow MAG as closely, but it seems like that race is a little more open, at least for the last spot. People who follow it obsessively may already know the team, but I don't, so I have that exciting, casual feeling going into those Trials.

Women's podium training yielding nothing much new. Nastia completed a bar routine that looks like it's going to be 50/50 for hitting in competition. Regardless of the hitting, the difficulty is just 6.5, which is not high enough for a specialist.

Many of the veterans are going through the motions when it comes to interviews about how they fit into the team, but you can tell that they know the game. I don't see a ton of delusion from those on the outside, which is nice. They can go out and enjoy their final elite competition, and we can enjoy watching them for the last time.

As we turn to evaluating how the group might fare in London, we need to look at a few specific routines. Unfortunately, the necessities of the five-member team leave few questions as to who will compete what in Team Finals (except perhaps floor), but the decision as to who will be the All-Around gymnasts could be made based on performances this weekend, so that will be fun to watch. The team is brimming with Amanars, but how people hit them at Trials will help determine lineups, so watch that. Martha loves Aly Raisman's sturdiness, which makes me think Aly is still in it for an AA spot, but the tide certainly is moving the other direction. If she scores lowest of the main group on vault and bars (quite possible), how can she be kept in the AA? Expect Douglas and Wieber to go 1-2, but watch the fight for third. Ross beating Raisman could seal that.

From Championships to Trials

Visa Championships came and went last weekend, and ultimately we leaned little that we didn't already know about the potential makeup of the US Olympic team. No one who isn't named Wieber, Douglas, Raisman, Ross, and Maroney did enough to put themselves into serious consideration. But we're gym fans, so we'll find a way to make Trials not boring. We always do. Can Nastia dismount? Will Martha pretend to consider taking Anna Li? Will Alicia magically have an upgraded vault and a floor routine? Will Maroney recover from her nose concussion? Will Kupets come back? 

The US is in an interesting position because, while all the other major contenders are doing the Amanar Scramble (a new option at Denny's), the US is doing the "Sweet Lord, is that your bars composition?" Two-Step. Other teams are trying to find the best vault options while the US is trying to find the least horrible bars option. It has become obvious that Jordyn Wieber will do bars in Team Finals, and she will go over on a handstand and get a 14.100, and everyone will just need to deal with it.



I still have a feeling that Martha will try to go out of her way to put Nastia on the team if she looks at all believable (meaning she hits two bar routines at Trials and outscores Ross), but the realistic storyline I'm most interested in is the Wieber/Douglas AA battle. It's irrelevant to team selection, but it will be great to see how it plays out. John Geddert will likely win Best Supporting Actress in an Olympic Trials. Well, it will be either him or Maggie Smith for Downton Abbey. It will be difficult for Geddert to cope if Wieber loses. We'll hear a lot of "National Championships is the one that matters." Maggie Smith will be fine is she doesn't win. She'll throw a double layout at the Olympics anyway.

Thoughts on Classic

While apparently there was some gymnastics performed on Saturday, focus is solely on this month's USAG Lifetime Original Movie called The Denial of Chellsie Memmel. You'll probably cry. While I feel bad for Chellsie because she should have Qualifier Emeritus status at this point and there's no legitimate reason to prevent her from going, I also live for all of the commotion this has caused. That part of me now wants to see Shawn Johnson skip Nationals and be granted a petition to Trials just to see what would happen.

Most of the controversy of the petition denial has centered around the arbitrary 14.000 one-event qualifying score that Martha apparently established without telling anyone. She has said that Chellsie could not be granted a petition because she did not meet that score. This is a red herring. The entire point of the petition is that it can be granted to a gymnast who doesn't meet the qualifying criterion and yet deserves to go anyway. So the argument that a petition cannot be granted to a gymnast who failed to reach a qualifying standard is ridiculous. That's why petitions exist, and it certainly could have been granted if they wanted to do it. They didn't want to.

Chellsie Memmel was never going to make this Olympic team, but neither is Brianna Brown, so let's not pretend that advancing to Nationals is all about who is in contention to make the Olympic team.

American Cup Preview

This Saturday's American Cup is a ridiculous little competition, largely because of the vast disparity between its perceived importance and its actual importance. Under normal human circumstances, an eight-competitor meet with a weak field where a certain winner is all but guaranteed would receive little more than a whisper of attention. But because it's an Olympic year, because the meet is in the US, because it's gymnastics on TV and we'll take what we can get, and because the NBC team pulls out gems like "The Most Important Annual International Meet on American Soil" (because that's such a tough category), we get unnaturally interested.

So, as a proud lemming to the unnatural interest in this ridiculous competition (and being a ridiculous person myself, we actually make a good match), I present my completely informed and professional preview of the women who will be competing this weekend.

Jordyn Wieber will almost certainly win this competition and has, more importantly, already been named to the Olympic team. You may have missed the announcement because it never happened, but it's nonetheless true. There will be a lot of talk in the coming months about how every spot is up for grabs. This is a lie. She's on the team barring injury. 

Wieber is the perfect gymnast for this code because of her consistency and broad skill set. But because we know she'll be part of the team, our attention turns from her strengths to the areas she needs to improve, so the big event to watch this weekend will be bars. Through savvy routine construction, John Geddert has tricked people into thinking that Wieber doesn't have a weakness, but she does and it's bars. Despite her high difficulty, she does not perform with a natural rhythm or cohesive line, and therefore needs those difficulty tenths to bump up her score. The presence of a disappointing trend in women's gymnastics, the Weiler kip, adds a general "Ode to Molasses" theme to her routine. We've been promised a reconstructed routine with improved details in 2012, and I hope to see just that because she is a likely bars worker for team finals. 

Aly Raisman is the second American competitor, and I have a definite soft spot in my cold gymnastics heart for our sturdy little Massachusetts Romanian. She's becoming more comfortable in interviews and is refreshingly self-aware regarding her weaknesses. She would be the first to tell you that artistry, flexibility, and bars are not up to the expected level. That's certainly true, but because she knows it, I can look past it. She's not out there pretending she's an awesome dancer.

Raisman is clearly a Martha favorite (we all remember the "Here's my BEAMER! Next beamer!" heard round the world from 2010), and her unflappable solidity on beam and difficulty on floor should put her in prime position heading into the summer. That being said, I still have reservations about her spot on the team because she is just so easy to overlook. She's like the Lady Edith of Team USA. She really needs to go drive a tractor and help at the convalescent hospital so she can stand out. Debuting a competent version of her long-suffering Amanar would go a long way toward helping her chances.

But speaking of which, why have I not done a Downton Abbey/Elite Gymnastics conversion before? Nastia is Lady Mary, obviously. Martha is the Dowager Countess. Bruno Grandi and Nellie Kim are Thomas and O'Brien. Is Kim Zmeskal Anna? She would totally help Nastia carry the body of her dead Turkish lover back to his own bedroom, if you know what I mean.

Moving on, after the jump I'll look at the international competitors who have been kind enough to offer to play the roles of the Washington Generals on Saturday.

Kelli Hill is Carson.

OK, now I'm really done.